Strange Meeting by Susan Hill and Journey’s End by R.C. Sheriff both are books which recover the encounter that occurred during the time of World War one .Journey’s End much like strange meeting, goes in detail about the experiences of war and how characters from both books are affected. For example, Both Stanhope and Hilliard both have a different feeling towards home as of how the war has psychically and mentally changed them. CRiTiC During the time of World war one conditions were treacherous, within the start of Journey’s End we are given a description of the dugout, which a whole number of soldiers were expected to live in. The thought of this is very claustrophobic and probably was just left the way it was as soldiers expected to be home by Christmas 1914 which wasn’t the case of course. Even though within the dugout it was very basic and just provided for mandatory needs such as sleeping and eating, the description of the scene does include how the men “pin to the wall of girls in flimsy costumes” this shows they still had a sense …show more content…
of their manhood and also the reality on the other side of this battlefield.
Men’s behaviour would have seemed to change their attitudes towards killing someone would be an archetype.
Before the war, almost every man would have no intention to kill another human for no utter reason but, the war teaches this and encourages it. This is also a reason why Wilfred Owen senses to lose touch in his faith Christianity which we know he was a committed member of before the war. This not as of ground beliefs but, how the vicar of a church encourages killing. The question is doesn’t Christianity teach “though shall not kill”? Additionally, many soldiers had ways of coping. Stanhope’s idea was by being constantly drunk, simply because of the fact that he didn’t want to be conscious of what is going around him. Whereas Trotter would comforts eat to keep his mind of his
surroundings.
Within Strange meeting a strong relationship is developed, Stanhope and Osborne have what it seems to be as if a ‘father and son’ relationship, this is shown vastly throughout. For example,
During the time of world war one, Soldiers were put in inhuman situations which was alienation at first, compared to a world without catastrophe. Things such as shell-shock, which is more commonly known as post-traumatic stress disorder is one of the many diseases which was spread vastly in such a small amount of time. Additionally,